Letters to a Suffering Friend

On Choosing to Confront Your Pain

Photo by Ire Photocreative on Unsplash

I couldn’t sleep last night and had the idea to write a series of open letters to a friend who is suffering. I wrote this one in the middle of the night (with some editing after espresso).

It turned out more like a letter to my younger self, the fruit of eighteen years of living with chronic pain. This is a first attempt to say what I wish someone had said to me half a lifetime ago.

Suffering can feel impossibly lonely, as if no one else could possibly understand the weight you carry. I hope these letters can reach across that chasm. Whether your suffering is physical, emotional, spiritual, or something else entirely, I hope these words feel like a companion on the road and a reminder that you are not alone.

If these words could comfort someone you know, I would be honored if you shared them.

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Dear Friend,

I know you’re hurting. I don’t know exactly where it hurts or how long it will last, but I’m here with you. I want to start by telling you that your pain is real. You do not have to hide it or minimize it. You do not have to pretend to be okay.

Don’t be afraid to confront your suffering head-on. Most people spend their entire lives trying to avoid pain, to outrun it, to distract themselves so they do not have to feel it. But facing it is the first, hardest, and most important step. It is only when we stop running that we can begin to understand what our suffering is asking of us and who we might become because of it.

Now is the time to engage in the deep, foundational questions of life. Ask the questions. Read classic literature and study the lives of great men and women, and you will quickly learn how crucial it is to suffer.

To suffer is to be human, and to be human is to suffer.

Why are we so afraid to confront this, both within ourselves and with those around us?

Embrace the suffering. It is one of the most deeply human experiences. Instead of allowing it to unite us, we often let it isolate us and force us to suffer alone. That is a tragedy.

But you are not alone.

You have stepped into this shared human journey. You are loved, not in spite of your pain and your suffering, but because of it. It is a crucial part of what makes you… you. It is a part of what makes you human.

Now that you have entered this experience of suffering in this particular way, you have embarked on an important and life-changing pilgrimage. You cannot let this experience go to waste.

There is a choice before you. Do you sit around and feel bad for yourself, endlessly asking “Why me?” and complaining until no one wants to be around you? Or do you accept the fact that this is happening to you? That it is real? But that it does not define all of who you are?

How are you going to respond?

Your response to your suffering is what truly matters. Do not waste this opportunity to dive deep into what it means to be a member of the human race. Discover that there is meaning in your pain. I cannot tell you exactly why this is happening to you, but I can tell you it is not by accident. My friend, I stopped believing in accidents a long time ago. No, this is part of a bigger plan at work. A design we cannot fully understand.

You are not going to be the same person on the other side of this. Who do you want to be? Do you want to come out stronger, braver, and wiser? Or do you want to come out broken, bitter, and closed off?

Don’t waste this moment. Don’t check out.

Now is the time to confront your suffering, to do the hard interior work, cry out to God in the middle of the night, and wrestle with the deepest questions of pain and suffering, of good and evil. Do not shy away from this.

Seek out spiritual masters and wise voices, past and present, who can walk with you. Read the great texts of humanity. Think. Pray. Engage.

If you embrace this quest, I promise your suffering’s grip on your life will begin to loosen. It might still be there, looming in the background, but you can break out of the cycle of fear it has trapped you in.

Today, you have to decide: do I embrace my suffering, or do I run from it?

Fair warning: you will have to recommit to that decision every single day.

Choosing the first path is not easy, but I promise you it is worth it.

I’m with you step by step.

Your friend,

David

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I’d genuinely love feedback on this format and whether you think this series of Letters to a Suffering Friend is worth expanding to other topics related to pain and suffering.